The WSJ had a pretty hard-hitting editorial today about what’s happening in Syria while the rest of the world is patting itself on the back for having “avoided war” in the country:
The world continues to hail the U.N. deal to remove Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons as a diplomatic triumph, and Vladimir Putin is even being floated for the Nobel Peace Prize. But peace hasn’t come to Syria, as reporter Sam Dagher reported in Thursday’s Journal.
Mr. Dagher reports that Assad’s forces are laying siege to the same rebellious Damascus neighborhood of Moadhamiya that was one of the targets of the regime’s August 21 chemical attack. Regime forces have cut off and encircled the area, and the military strategy is to starve the remaining 12,000 residents into submission….
The siege shows that whether or not Assad turns over all of his chemical weapons, the U.S.-Russia deal was a strategic victory for Assad and his patrons in Iran. He can now turn his forces loose to kill the opposition by any means possible as long as he doesn’t use chemical weapons for the 15th time. He can even starve thousands, including women and children, knowing that he faces no risk of Western intervention. The phrase for this is the peace of the grave.
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The Wall Street Journal is nothing but a conservative mouthpiece so I’ll have to read about this elsewhere before I weigh in.
That’s unquestionably true that the horrible war in Syria continues. But Assad’s opposition is not going away, and continues to receive support from outside sources, too, like Saudi Arabia. As WSJ points out, it is vital to remember that this chemical weapons agreement is not an occasion to celebrate some great peace coming to Syria, but if you have the US and Russia and the UN to some extent coming together on that facet of the conflict, the idea of some negotiated settlement is at least a tinier bit closer (very tiny, maybe) than previously. Plus now we have Iran seeking negotiations…is there a grander bargain possible here?
It’s not like we really want the opposition to win either in Syria, that does not present itself as a more appealing alternative to Assad. And what WSJ fails to acknowledge is that there was not a better alternative. The US getting involved unilaterally in situations like this, essentially a sectarian inter-Muslim civil war, does not make things better, neither for the people of Syria nor our own national security. Things do need to change in Syria, but this can only be done with multi-lateral cooperation involving the major powers and the UN. And if it doesn’t happen, we just have to keep trying, and keep trying, and keep trying. It’s frustrating and tragic to witness the continuing death and suffering in Syria, but there is no alternative to continuing to push for a negotiated settlement or ceasefire…or ultimately, action, but only truly international action. The deal with Russia and Syria does not take us further away from that, contra the WSJ’s view.
On the Walk this morning, we had a bipartisan agreement you’d make a great Senator, far better than what we have.